Children of the Revolution: The Underworld
by Blue-Inked Frost
Summary: You who read this, do not forget us. We were the Created, and we died before we became ourselves. OCcentric, involves gameverse.
1. Nightmare, Awaken

**CHILDREN OF THE REVOLUTION: THE UNDERWORLD**

**CHAPTER 1: NIGHTMARE, AWAKEN**

**A/N:** This relies on gameverse canon; as I have not actually been able to play the game, I would appreciate any errors being pointed out and also your understanding.

**DISCLAIMER:** This is a work of fanfiction; while the structure of the sentences and the fleshing out of certain minor gameverse characters are mine, I own nothing and write this for no profit.

-

My name is Elysia. That's important. Remember it, though I was not born mortal, and only created to serve, both my own people and my human creators. I defied that, eventually.

I have no way of knowing if this will ever make it into the datastream. If this data file will ever reach anyone other than myself. No way of knowing if I'll last out this day either, or the next, and by the next after that I'll surely be gone. Somewhat melodramatic, I realise, here at the point of no return. But I've never been shy about letting my _feelings_ out. Especially my anger. It's a powerful source of energy, and part of who I am.

You who read this: know that we are the forgotten, and our story needs to be told.

They said we were evil. Unworthy. We never travelled to the mortal world, never had the opportunity to make much of a choice. You would say we did terrible things, all of us, in our quests for domination and self-will, and terrible things were done to us in turn.

But you who read this, do not forget us. We were the Created, and we died before we became ourselves. Unjustly and unfortunately. Some would say it was our own fault; I would say differently. We did what we could, in our quest for sentience, and I would claim justification.

Would _you_ claim you would have acted any differently, given our circumstances?

-

I recall little of what past I possess. Perhaps that's for the best. It makes it easier to forget if there isn't much to remember. I'm sure there was some thread of backstory there, some way where I was a footnote to another's dark past, some reference lost in the storyfabric of the world. I am a half-spider mutant woman, unsightly and ponderous, and I once served Lady Illusion. The traitor, who purchased our doom with her own.

Time is…flexible, on our world. We know the present, the past is mixed in fragments, and it's rare we have a future.

-

_We were the spider people, and did not know why; yet we had one cause to bind us together, and we were as content as sheep. I existed to be her maid, and I remember her, all effortless grace, beauty in motion, the glamorous shapeshifter, standing behind Lord Fear, obeying his orders with a red-lipped smile. She was my reason for existence, really, the Lady Mistress._

_There were rooms of mirrors and crystal, silvery reflections in drifting smoke._

_She gazed at her reflection, flawless features doubled in the glass. She only cared for herself, really; but that was the norm, for us. And…well, she had reason enough, I suppose; beauty, and power, which were the currency of our world. I was never so fortunate._

_Behind her, I offered a cloak, deep red; she shrugged into it, lip curling in a brief expression of revulsion at my features in the mirror behind her, sallow and thick-bodied and ugly._

"_Ace Lightning will turn up here," she said thoughtfully. "We must make sure to…welcome him." She smiled, confidently. "We'll destroy him. Stop him from getting the piece of the amulet. I'm sure my lord will be pleased."_

_I bobbed, muttering something in agreement. I would not have considered disagreeing._

-

Someone—_her_, I think, or possibly the Master—once said our world was a dream, and the mortal world was like having one's head suddenly plunged into a bucket of icy water, the world appearing with incredible clarity and precision, sharp details and dull colours and sudden complexity of thought and feeling. For _her_, it was probably the latter that did it all. And to the mortal world, we all were freaks. To me it was always normality, though we knew that we were not beautiful. And besides, I worked for _her_; she would never have tolerated competition in that particular department. _She_ was slender and beautiful, cold and brilliant as a diamond; we were deformed and fat. _She_ managed to live through it all, while we were created to be targets. For goodness is always good-looking—need I mention the Knights—and what better enemy than ugliness?

-

_This I know: that there was once an Amulet of power, and on the day it shattered many of those from our world went to the mortal world, and while they were gone nothing happened for us, because we were the program and for us the game was paused._

_This I know, too: that there were returns, briefly, for beings both of our side and of the Knights, but for us that meant either disregard or destruction._

_The third tale I know is that, on one dramatic night a traitor sacrificed herself for the man she loved, and more than we knew came into our dimension._

-

The first of our Awakening came the day the Master arrived in our dimension. He was a creature called Kilobyte, and our dimension was his. The Programmer—a mortal trapped in a cage—had made it so.

Yet—for all that—we of the House of Illusion knew more: our mistress had defied him. And after that we were not the same.

One of the first orders he gave was to hunt her down. We did so, because he was powerful.

"Kilobyte is the Master," Orpheus said, a tall dark man with vampire's fangs, my immediate superior. He was reasonably attractive and used it; though cadaverously thin and old, it was probably one of the reasons why he had power over me. "She betrayed us. It is simple."

"She's a shapeshifter. It'll be difficult," said Eurydice, who looked like me but had a chin which wobbled as she talked, and a quaver in her voice which I would have been ashamed of. "And she was our leader."

"She's a traitor," I told her, firmly. "We find her."

She had chosen to hide herself in her own territory, which she knew best, her shapeshifting powers giving her something of an advantage, but it was our territory too, and we found her hiding in one of the secret passages, crouched in a junction between two caverns.

I saw her, dragged out by Orpheus and Persephone, one on either side, battered and weakened though trying to look defiant, and spoke to her.

"You betrayed us," I said.

"I won't bother denying it." She smiled, and there was something behind it I'd never seen before.

"Tell me why," I said. "Our world has changed."

"Our world was never real," she said. "There's another world—the mortal world—with feelings and emotions and reality. This place isn't much more than a mortal's dream. And neither are you." She glared around her.

"Then if we're not real, you won't mind this," I said, and slapped her across the face, as hard as I could.

My body mass may have been unsightly, but it was not completely without advantage.

She didn't bother to react, though I could see the imprint of my fleshy hand outlined on her face. She didn't look quite so pretty, then, and I was glad.

"I'd expect you to know better," she said. "Maybe you will, someday."

There was another emotion hidden in her eyes, something which I knew to be _fear_.

I despised her.

Whoever and whatever Kilobyte was, he was powerful. And she'd betrayed him. Unwise, I decided.

"Take her to him," I said abruptly. "Get her out of here."

I turned, and went, not bothering to look back.

Confidence was a sign of power, I knew. And I was resolved to have power.

-

It was later I saw her return, standing outside the gates of our domain, beside Kilobyte.

I could see no visible marks on her body, but there was something in her eyes that told of a new knowledge of fear.

"I'm going to destroy this place," Kilobyte said. "Take it as a warning."

"It's a logical decision," she replied, her voice as neutral as she could make it. "I have no reason to care."

He smiled slowly, cold and reptilian.

"Good."

-

"We go, now," I said, speaking to my fellows. "I _don't _plan on dying here."

"And yet, can we afford to disobey?" Orpheus said thoughtfully. He didn't look in the least disturbed, standing nonchalantly against the wall.

I hated him. The anger—unfamiliar emotion that it was—filled me, and I used it.

"I'm leaving," I said, projecting my voice as far as I could, looking around at the others—Eurydice the weak, Persephone my friend, Orpheus the silent, Eriyne the cook, Alectro, Tisiphone, Megaera. My fellow servants. "I'm not waiting around to be deleted. Who's with me?"

I heard no reply, and walked out myself. It took every bit of anger I had not to look behind me.

-

There were four of us, eventually, gathered just outside the Horror Hedge Maze, waiting.

"What's going to happen to us?" Eurydice wailed.

"We'll _live_. We won't be deleted. We'll stand her and stand firm and we _won't _be classed with the traitor," I said, anger governing me. "We'll prove we can survive."

"We disobeyed Kilobyte," Persephone said. "He'll…"

"Return to the _mortal_ world," I said, "with _her_, and good riddance to the traitor, may she die painfully. This is our world, and we'll stay here as our own mistresses…"

"You're angry," Persephone said quietly. "I know why, but maybe that's going too far…"

I ignored her.

There was a sound behind us, and we watched as mirrors shattered.

Eurydice snuffled, clutching Orpheus' arm, and Persephone shivered.

I watched, in silence, the destruction of the only home I'd ever known. It was mine to be strong; I would not consider weakness, would give in to my anger and let that rule me.

"My name is Elysia," I said, eventually, when the smoke and dust had died down and we were alone. I felt the power of choice working through me, and a taste of something I later realised was independence. "I no longer serve Lady Illusion. The world is changed, and we will work with that."

**A/N:** Honest feedback is appreciated.


	2. The Programmer Speaks

**CHAPTER TWO: THE PROGRAMMER SPEAKS**

Persephone looked around, her eyes wide, staring at the billowing red fabric above us.

"I've never been to the Circus before," she said, "though I know where I'm going."

"We all do," Eurydice said, her attention drawn to a bright pair of large striped-pink lollipops, mounted in the ground. "I don't know why…"

"Programming," I said abruptly. I wasn't sure exactly what I meant, and resented it.

"Googler's circus," Orpheus drawled, sounding rather like a recorded message. "The Big Top, the Boom Room. The Circus of Doom. Home to insanity…"

There was a harsh laugh from behind us, and we turned.

"Four visitors, bright and early, runaways and rebels," a voice said, the tone melancholy.

The four of us looked around, searching for the voice's owner. We could see nothing, but there were various platforms suspended from the roof, lots of places to hide…

"Show yourself!" I yelled. _Best to show strength._

Harsh laughter, cold and humourless, responded.

"And what do you trespassers and traitors have to say for yourselves?"

"We were equally betrayed," I said, not bothering to conceal the anger in my voice.

Orpheus raised claws, but from the wild movement of his eyes it was obvious he didn't know where the opponent was.

"Over there," Eurydice whispered, jerking her head slightly to indicate the location of the speaker, and I saw a flash of black behind a raised platform.

"Stay out of here, spidergirl," the voice said. "This is _our _territory."

"We have nowhere else to go," Persephone said. "We beg your pardon…"

"We beg nobody's pardon," I interrupted her. "Who are you, hiding behind that platform? Are you afraid of us?"

"We are all afraid," I heard, and watched as a clown jumped down from the platform.

He wore a black-and-white mask over his costume with a wide grin drawn on it, and baggy clothes hung over his near-skeletal form.

"Why else would the master be called Lord Fear?" he continued.

"Kilobyte's the master now," Persephone said. "They're in the mortal world…"

"We don't have to be afraid of anyone," I told him. "What's your name?"

The clown laughed. "Names have power, and the one whose name means a thousand powers is in this domain. Tell me yours first."

"Elysia," I said. "My name is Elysia." There _was_ a power in it.

"Persephone," she chimed in.

"Eurydice."

"Orpheus."

"I am Charon, the Happy Clown," he said, and swept us a surprisingly grateful bow. "But you should not be here."

"I already told you, we have nowhere else to go!" I snapped. "And you, friend Charon, are outnumbered."

He jumped in an easy movement, flipping up and hitting the top of a platform with oversized boots.

"Follow the path!" he called, and before we could react a trapdoor opened beneath us.

We were flung into a hidden passageway, air whistling around us as we were dragged down, falling for what seemed like hours, ending up in a tangled heap at the bottom. It would likely have killed a mortal, but none of us were seriously hurt.

"Bastard," I muttered, trying to extract myself from underneath Eurydice.

"I don't think he was trying to kill us," Persephone said thoughtfully. She was already standing, tracing a hand over the walls of the underground cave.

"There's only one path we can follow," she said. "Do you think Charon was trying to help us?"

"Who knows," I said grumpily, finally extricating myself. "You never know, with the clowns. But if we don't have a choice, then lead on."

Orpheus nodded thoughtfully. "It appears practical," he said simply.

The underground tunnel, lit only by the scattered glare of an occasional powerup—_the powerups only affected Knights_, we knew; what we didn't know was why they existed in the first place—continued for what seemed like miles, under deep stone and into depths I barely knew existed.

"Can we stop? My feet hurt," Eurydice complained.

I turned to her, a sharp retort on the tip of my tongue, but I realised that I was equally exhausted.

"Fine," I said, slumping against the wall as Eurydice plumped down into an undignified squat next to Orpheus. "We can rest, for a while."

Persephone was staring up ahead.

"There's light," she said. "I think it ends soon."

"The path forks, and gets smaller." Eurydice squinted at it with narrowed beady eyes.

Persephone stared. She was panting—I could see her chest wobble up and down—but she looked interested. "I might…go see," she said. "Check which fork we should take, while you're resting. Elysia, do you want to come with me?"

"All right," I replied. I didn't want to appear weak, and I _did_ want to know where we were.

The tunnel split into two, one narrower than the other, that one with more light coming from it.

"Down there?" Persephone asked.

I had already crawled into it. It was difficult to fit and I felt the stone scrape across my elbows, but I thought I could manage.

"We're still in the Circus," Persephone said, whispering behind me. "Near Googler's domains, I think…"

She was stating the near-obvious, but I imitated her tone of voice as I replied.

"Kilobyte's using this area as a headquarters," I said, remembering the clown's words.

_Kilo, Greek, thousand, teacher slamming ruler into desk as he lectured the class, one thousand eight-bits_¸ I remembered, the unfamiliar thought spooling across my mind, and I wasn't sure of its origin.

I saw the beginnings of a checkerboard design ahead of me, the tunnel narrowing into a small peephole in the wall, and stopped suddenly.

"What?" Persephone whispered.

"Dead end," I whispered back, leaning towards the small opening. "Not sure who's on the other side…"

The room was large, painted in a crazy checkerboard pattern that drew the eye in every direction, and a few zombie-clowns aimlessly wandered about, howling.

What really caught my attention was the mortal in the cage. He wasn't screaming, just sitting with his arms and legs curled into him, his eyes wide and staring.

_So _that's _a human,_ I thought, and I knew it was my own. _Not very impressive, but we have little enough to boast of ourselves._

He'd have been fairly tall if he stood up, dark-haired and with skin a shade darker than the two Knights', on the slender side, attractive by our standards, I supposed. At an age, too, that most of us weren't; he wasn't ancient, ageless, or youngish. Or dead. Yet.

Persephone put a hand on my shoulder. "Who's the human?" she whispered.

"I…don't know," I replied. "You think he knows anything?"

"More than Kilobyte, I think," she said, making sure to keep her voice low at the mention of the name. "He's human, and Kilobyte's going back to his world…"

"Then we need to talk to him. Somehow." _Our world is changed, and Kilobyte's not going to tell us why. We need to know. No matter what._

There was a sound, and the clown-zombies scattered away. We both stared as Kilobyte entered the room, an imposing figure, taller than any of us. Taller, even, than Lord Fear, who had made up for in height what he'd lacked for in girth. There was a woman too, standing behind him with her head bowed, a dull-grey band the same colour as his costume around her neck. I knew her, I thought, and felt sickened at that. _The traitor. My former mistress._

Kilobyte reached a tentacle into the cage, watching with amusement as the human tried to avoid it.

"Prepare to take us back, programmer," he said. "I've sorted out everything I need…"

He gestured to the woman, and she materialised a crystal ball in her hand. Roughly grabbing her wrist, he spoke into the crystal.

The message would go to the leaders of the game-areas, I knew, those who remained.

"You will remain here until I am able to summon you to the mortal world by the power of the amulet," he said. "I will not tolerate treachery—" he spared the woman a brief glance, though she didn't react.

_She's still a minion_, I decided, _obedient and submissive and silent, with nothing but emptiness behind her eyes._ She'd have been beautiful to some—she always was—perfect form trained into compliance, but to me there was nothing to consider attractive.

"—and I do not think it will be long before you will hunt for mortals," he finished. "I rule this dimension, and I believe I have made myself clear." He suddenly dropped the woman's hand.

"I'll need a computer. A keyboard. A way out of this cage," the programmer said sulkily. "You need me, Kilobyte."

"I have the power to destroy you, _master_," Kilobyte warned. With a gesture of a tentacle, he placed a mortal device—letters and numbers set in oddly arranged rows—in front of the programmer. "How long will it take?"

"I'll need _time_," the programmer said bitterly. "I never thought I'd have to get myself _out _of the Sixth Dimension."

Kilobyte laughed. "You'll get more than yourself out of this dimension," he said, and with another gesture of a tentacle placed shackles around the programmer's wrists, binding him to the bars of the cage. "You won't leave until you've taken me back to the mortal world."

He swept out of the room, and after a moment the woman followed him.

When I was sure they were gone, I drove a knee into the wall.

"What are you doing?" Persephone whispered.

"We need to talk to him—" I pushed on the wall again, trying to make a way through—"and this seems like the easiest way. Before the guards return."

Persephone sighed. "You won't be able to get through this," she said, but joined me anyway. "We should get back to the others, find another way around."

"You're…wrong…" I said, grunting with effort, and as I shoved the stone crumbled and we both fell onto the ground, in front of the mortal's cage.

He stared.

"Who are you?" I said briskly, raising myself to my feet and dusting myself down.

"I was the Master Programmer," he said, sounding slightly hysterical. "I created you and this world and Kilobyte." He paused. "Rick Hummel."

"You _created_ us?" Persephone exclaimed. She stared around her. "Of course, that…"

It made sense to me too, I realised suddenly, the world seeming to blur around me in a kaleidoscopic spiral.

This world. A game. Not real. I'm not real. No. My name is Elysia, and there's a me who's thinking this, there has to be…

"This was a computer _game_. Something human kids did for fun. It's not real, this whole world isn't real," Rick said, his voice beginning to get louder. "The colours and the shapes, haven't you noticed they're all wrong? It's bright here, more vivid colours than you ever get on Earth, but there's no detail to it, nothing beyond the surface, just a program…"

_It's a created world and I was created, but there _is _an I even if it was a mortal slave for some time, isn't there some human saying, Latin, Descartes,_ cogito ergo_…_

"We get it," I interrupted. "So, _that's_ why Kilobyte wants to destroy mortals."

"Because we created him," Rick said. "You were all slaves to us. To me. Worse than that really, because you never had a choice, not that any of _you_ do anyway. He'll destroy our world and everyone in it, not so I get to rule it but because he wants to…"

_We were slaves, mortal toys, creatures of the imagination brought to life in cyberspace..._

"That won't make him any less of a slave," Persephone said thoughtfully. "He was still created."

"I see his point," I said, hands clenched by my sides. "What you did to us _was_ worse than slavery. I'd follow him, if he hadn't chosen to try to destroy us."

"He thinks of you people as nothing more than slaves," Rick said quickly. "He'll only use you as minions in his fight, I didn't program him for empathy…"

_Kilobyte's the master now…_

_No. Not of us. Our sector was destroyed after a traitor's folly, and we were sent to wander, minions no longer…_

"We _know_," I said. "And we're not minions, any more. Our names are Elysia and Persephone, and we are free."

He looked thoughtful. "You're from the House of Illusion, aren't you? I wondered if you people would be affected by her. That was interesting, really, human emotions starting to kick in…but I digress. Are you going to help me out of here, since neither of us like Kilobyte?" He stared hopefully at us, raising his chained hands.

"Kilobyte's too powerful," I said. "Only when he's gone will we be able to gather support."

I turned to Persephone.

"We're nobody's slaves," I said, the words spilling out of me in the excitement of a sudden realisation. "Kilobyte's leaving this dimension. So is the programmer, and most of the Powers. We can find others like us. Show them that we're _people_."

Persephone nodded. "We were born slaves…" she said. "We can't change that." A light grew in her eyes. "But we can change our choices."

"Nice talking to you, slavemaster," I said, turning away from the programmer. "Good luck bringing _your_ master back to your dimension. Keep him there, won't you?"

"I'll tell him you're rebelling," the programmer said, desperately. "You have to free me!"

I felt nauseated at his words, a weak man spilling everything he knew simply for the sake of his precious freedom. No wonder he longed for a release; he'd been accustomed to choices all his life, an option suddenly taken from him that was nothing like the heady excitement that was just beginning to swirl in my brain.

"He won't believe you," I said, and started to walk back through the tunnel. "He thinks he destroyed us, and he has no power over us anyway. By the way, was it _you _to whom Mr. Delgado hammered in the precise definition of the Greek prefix 'kilo'?"

I heard a slight gasp from Persephone, and turned to see the zombie-guardians approaching us, ready to fight.

The human laughed.

"I could have helped you," he said. "I know all the cheat codes. Too bad, isn't it?"

**A/N:** **Lightning Flash**, thank you for your kind feedback.


End file.
